23 December 2013

Obamacare Mission Accomplished

So, today, the deadline for signing up for an Obamacare health plan through Colorado's health care exchange that is effective January 1, 2014, from my father's place in Ohio, we finished up the process of applying for a new health insurance policy after many weeks of careful study and bureaucratic struggles including a major website failure.

In the end it was worth it. My per person deductible in 2014 will be $5,000 per year smaller than it was in 2013 (as a group of one through the Colorado Bar Association), and my premium is about $250 a month smaller for a family of four. I won't have to change any doctors or prescriptions. The co-pays in my new plan are mostly the same, but the generic drug co-pay on the new plan is lower than the one that I pay now, and there are a few preventative care goodies that had co-pays before and don't know.

For me, the subsidy helps some, but the main benefit is getting an insurance policy that is at the same rate that big businesses get, because before the Affordable Care Act, adverse selection drove up small group rates.

3 comments:

“….we finished up the process of applying for a new health insurance policy after many weeks of careful study and bureaucratic struggles including a major website failure.”

Translation: major transaction costs.

“In the end it was worth it.”

Translation: a notional proposition.

“My per person deductible in 2014 will be $5,000 per year smaller than it was in 2013 (as a group of one through the Colorado Bar Association), and my premium is about $250 a month smaller for a family of four. I won't have to change any doctors or prescriptions. The co-pays in my new plan are mostly the same, but the generic drug co-pay on the new plan is lower than the one that I pay now, and there are a few preventative care goodies that had co-pays before and don't know.”

Translation: all other reports, more succinctly, the mountain of other reports strongly suggesting the opposite case, accompanied by supporting evidence, are untrue. This particular case, with no supporting evidence, is then held forth as the basic case, because it happened to me.

“For me, the subsidy helps some…”

Translation: Rent seeking.

“….but the main benefit is getting an insurance policy that is at the same rate that big businesses get, because before the Affordable Care Act, adverse selection drove up small group rates.”

Translation: small group [0-50], are in fact underwritten regarding each individual application to avoid anti selection. It is only large group that has streamlined underwriting [+50]. ACA is an anti-selection based scheme. Hence ACA is pointed to as solving adverse selection, yet it does no such thing. Further, large group underwriting is superimposed upon small group underwriting to achieve the author’s misinformed notions regarding adverse selection.

Note: the post is demand side. The author has forgotten the supply side of health-care, which the third party [insurer] pays, remains completely out of control. The supply side of health-care is non-robust, non-competitive, non-price signal supply. The supply side is non-robust due to legislation spawning regulation brought into existence by politicos through the mechanism of government. Hence no mission is “accomplished” as the supply side remains non-robust, non-competitive, non-price signal.

To me, the most appalling part of the process was finding out that I am eligible for medicaid. Free school lunches never seemed like a handout, but free medical care depresses the heck out of me. I am not sure why.